Aspartame is escalating Alzheimers as explained in "Defense Against Alzheimers Disease" and Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic by H. J. Roberts, M.D., http://www.sunsentpress.com or 1-800-827-7991.

STUDIES:

NEW STUDIES IN GREECE HAVE IMPLICATED ASPARTAME WITH NEUROLOGICAL PROBLEMS (LEARNING AND MEMORY PROCESSES)

http://www.wnho.net/new_greek_aspartame_studies.htm On review, Dr. Roberts said: "The demonstration that large concentrations of aspartame can influence acetylcholine metabolism in any model is important, especially relative to brain function. It has profound implications concerning the evolution of Alzheimer's disease .."

In FDA's list of 92 documented symptoms from aspartame "memory loss" is #9.

What sweetener is used in Diet Coke? Diet Coke served in cans and bottles in the U.S. is sweetened with aspartame, while the fountain dispensed product is sweetened with a blend of aspartame and saccharin.

A small amount of aspartame? Perhaps they whisper aspartame over the machine. Several informants over the years have said they tried aspartame in the fountain machines and it destroyed them, the reason they switched to saccharin. So any aspartame blend would have to be minute. It would be interesting to have the fountain variety analyzed.

James Bowen, M.D., said, .."Aspartame is a potent chelating agent. The FDA told the manufacturers 30 years ago, that this fact alone would never allow Aspartame's approval for human beings, because it rapidly chelates the heavy metal poisons from any metal or ceramic container it is poured into, and carries the metal right into the body. Because they are in chelated form, those heavy metal poisons are highly adsorbed from the digestive tract. Aluminum is not absorbed from the digestive tract unless it is chelated. My friends, who deliver pop and service pop machines, tell me that sugar pop never eats its way through the cans. It is only the aspartame pop that chelates its way through the aluminum can and makes a mess. Billions of cans of aspartame pop, full of toxic chelated aluminum are consumed every year. Is it any wonder that we are seeing an epidemic of Alzheimer's disease?"

FROM MARTINI:

We have Diet Coke cans used as props that have completely been eaten through. After taking case histories of aspartame victims for over 15 years the memory loss problem is so bad that I've been told repeatedly how women forget to pick up their children at school, or end up somewhere they weren't going. Mission Possible Aviation was founded when a pilot on aspartame suffered such confusion and memory loss he crashed his plane.

Wrote Craig Chiodi on March 31, 1996: "Betty, about two years ago I was driving my brother out to Las Vegas and stopped in a local gas station, as I was about to buy a Diet Pepsi, and the delivery driver for Pepsi approached me. What he told me then was to stay away from NutraSweet and any products that contain it. He told me that he was "demoted" from his position as a chemical engineer when he began to raise objections to the use of aspartame in their diet drinks. At that time they were beginning to receive the results of the ten year trials conducted by the soft drink industry. Blindness, birth defects, ALZHEIMERS!... Please send me information on what I can do to help spread the world." (Martini: Interesting that some years later I mentioned this study to someone who worked for the NSDA. She said, "You couldn't possibly have a copy of those studies.")

HEARSAY FROM INFORMANTS:

A hospice nurse, Susan Laird, called in l995 to say Alzheimer patients being admitted were as young as 30 years old. She reported she had 6 friends who were Diet Coke addicts and they all had been diagnosed with MS, beyond coincidence. A nurse from California during the Olympics reported she was a friend of someone in the manufacturers family and they tell all their friends not to use aspartame because it causes Alzheimers. My friend Kathy, whose ex-husband worked for Monsanto, said the day he went to work he was told not to use it, its a poison, and that no one in his family was to use it. He also was sent to work with the FDA (showing their close association) and asked them why it had not been removed from the market. He was told, "we approved it, nothing we can do". Then he was sent to work with Searle at which time he quit saying their research was negotiable. This is interesting since ILSI, the research front group, is a spin off of the NSDA.

My husband and I stopped in St. Louis on the way to New Mexico and were giving out warning flyers. A lady on our flight mentioned her mother rented a room to a physician who told her physicians were warned if they told anyone aspartame causes Alzheimers they would be sued.

"So in the case of diet drinks in aluminum cans, the very toxic brain aluminum fluoride compound co-exists with multiple toxins found in aspartame, thus creating the most powerful government-approved toxic soup imaginable. With the strong association between aluminum, excitotoxns, aluminum fluoride complexes and Alzheimer's disease, it would be completely irresponsible to encourage people to consume this toxic mixture. Yet, this is done literally billions of times every year in advertising."

Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills: page 142,

"It has been shown that exposing normal neurons to extracts of Alzheimer's affected brains induced paired helical filaments very similar to those seen in the neurofibrillary tangles of Alzheimer's patients. Likewise, exposing neurons to glutamate or aspartate (a major component of NutraSweet) can induced paired helical filaments very similar to those seen in naturally occurring Alzheimer's disease."

This chapter by Dr. Blaylock is titled: Alzheimer's Disease: A Classic Case of Excitotoxin Damage. An excitotoxin is a product that literally stimulates the neurons of the brain to death causing brain damage. 40% of aspartame is aspartate, an excitotoxin. http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_brain_damage.htm

"Aspartame consumption may accelerate, and possibly initiate, Alzheimer's disease (AD). The details appear in Defense Against Alzheimer's Disease (Roberts 1995b). Accordingly, caution about its use is warranted from physicians, dietitians, and hospital/nursing home personnel.

The urgency of this matter is indicated by the enormous projected estimates of symptomatic Alzheimer's disease within the next two decades. Furthermore, Dr. Joseph Foley (l987), Chairman of the National Institutes of Health consensus panel on Differential Diagnosis of Dementing Diseases, emphasized: "Our first obligation is not to allow the remediable to get out of hand."

By < a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/jane_gross/index.html?inline=nyt-per">JANE GROSS

More than five million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, a 10 percent increase from the last official tally five years ago, and a number expected to more than triple by 2050, absent a cure, as the 85-and-over population soars and the baby boomers move into their late 60s and 70s.

The updated estimates, based on the rising occurrences of the disease with age, not new disease research, were released yesterday by the Alzheimer's Association, along with a compilation of other information about a progressive brain disease that afflicts 13 percent, or one in eight people 65 and over, and 42 percent of those past 85.

Much of the report is a synthesis of existing research on the prevalence and costs of the disease. But the report includes the startling finding that 200,000 to 500,000 people younger than 65 have some form of early onset form of dementia, including a rare form of Alzheimer's disease that strikes people in their 30s and 40s.

Mary Mittelman, an Alzheimer's researcher at New York University, had mixed feelings about disproportionate attention to early onset Alzheimer's disease. On the one hand, Dr. Mittelman said, these cases are such a small minority that she fears will take focus and resources "from the majority who are much older." On the other, she said, "because of the ageism of this society" far too many people still believe dementia to be part of normal aging and attention to this younger group will clarify that it is a "real disease."

Apart from early onset cases, the primary risk factor for Alzheimer's disease is age.

Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, affects memory, reasoning and communication. In the advanced stage, people need help dressing, using the bathroom and eating. In the final stages, they cannot speak or recognize family members. The disease is ultimately fatal.

Currently, there are five drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration that slow the disease's symptoms for 6 to 12 months in half the individuals who take them. Nine other drugs are in late-stage trials.

Yesterday's report was released at a hearing in Washington, where Congress is considering a bipartisan bill to increase research money.

The report itemizes the cost to the federal government in Medicare spending. Care for a patient with dementia costs three times as much as care for the average beneficiary ­ $13,207 a year vs. $2,454 ­ and overall dementia-related Medicare costs are expected to more than double, to $189 billion, by 2015.

Other costs include the value of unpaid care provided by family and friends to the vast majority of Alzheimer's patients who live at home.

Estimates were based on research by the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago, which analyzed incidence of the disease locally. That incidence information was then extrapolated to national prevalence using census population figures and census projections.